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Talk: 2011-12_14 Bhaddekarata Sutta.json Start_time: 01:04:16 Display_question: Can you speak about how ways to motivate myself to practice, outside of CIMC? Keyword_search: practice, grim, joyless, striving, skill, right effort, balanced, happy, present, suffering, Buddha, enlightenment, Midwest, Pavlov, Skinner, pain/pleasure principle, resistance, Shantideva, confidence, faith, saddha, conviction, wisdom, Korean, history, art of living, psychological climate Question_content: Questioner: I have a question about practice. Larry: Sure. Questioner: I find that practice is not easy. Larry: If you make…In other words it’s difficult? Questioner: So if I make… I have to make myself do it. And when I am here I do it, but when I’m not here, I don’t do it. Larry: Is it torture even here? Questioner: Sometimes Larry: Yeah, of course. Questioner: Now I am going on a long journey. I'm moving away, so I can’t be here. So I’m taking a long drive across the country, and where I'm going out west, there is no place like this. Larry: Are you sure? Probably. I don't know. There are more, and more, places that are starting to pop up. Questioner: So how do I… Larry: Yeah, but let's go back to the grim, joyless thing, first. This is not meant to be cod liver oil. Or like cod liver oil that our mommy stuffed into our mouths, so we get enough… now they have all these scientific terms. We have omega three, and omega 6579, and vitamin D. And, you know, it's got all these incredible things. Our knees will be okay. Our heart will be okay. The brain will function. Just have your fish oil. My mother didn't know any of this. Just eat, drink your fish oil, and shut up. Okay, she didn't have the scientific evidence to prove why I should do it, and I wouldn't have cared anyway. Why is it so grim? Now this is a skill that we're learning. Sometimes, I don't know you. Sometimes that kind of experience means you're trying too hard, and it means that there's some striving, and something you're trying to achieve, and maybe it's the way you've done everything else. It's quite common. And in this area where everyone is, a lot of people anyway, have school and jobs and all that, there's a lot of striving. Break_line: You do need effort, but it's right effort, and the effort is balanced. It's somewhere between striving, which just poisons the practice, and being so casual that you just drift off all the time. So it's finding, and it varies from moment to moment. Some days we have a lot of energy, some days not so much. And to begin with, it's like any new skill. Can you think of some other skill? Did you master it right away? I don't think so. And let's say people who write, probably more in the old days, with typewriters, there's probably more paper in the wastepaper basket, than eventually becomes a book. So, it's part of life. You're learning a new skill. Now, it may be that this skill is very challenging, more challenging. But why do you do it? I'm asking, why do you do it? Questioner: I think it will make…it will get me where I am happy. Larry: Where’s that? Questioner: When I am more present. Enjoying life, satisfied, not suffering. Larry: I understand. Yes. Okay, well, you will. Okay. I understand. There's a difference between pain, and suffering. The Buddha’s teaching locates so much of our sorrow in the psyche, that's the source of it. But there's always going to be pain. But that's different than torment, what the mind can turn, just even a painful, someone getting up, and giving a seat. Like, to me, turn that into torment. That's extra. So, first off, take a look at yourself. Break_line: Here's a suggestion, a practical one. Since you seem to nod, when I mentioned, maybe you're striving too hard. And that does first of all, you can't last that way. This is a marathon. It's not a sprint. It's a lifetime's work. It's not two weeks to anything, or two weekends to something. I intend to do this, intend, I will be practicing this until my last breath, and I've been doing it for quite a while, and say, you mean after all these years, you're not finished? Perfect, cooked. I haven't met anyone who is. I don't know if the Buddha was. If you're human, even the Buddha, after full enlightenment, so many challenges, people try to kill him, defamed him, monks who didn't understand what he was talking about, et cetera. So, life continues to be challenging, but we learn how to relate to it, in a very different way. Break_line: So that…here's a practical suggestion. Let's say you get up in the morning. I understand it's easier here, to do it, and that's the reason why here exists. It's based on the fact that we need… it's helpful to have some company. The time may come, where you can have it, or not, I hope so. Because if you can only sit with a crowd of, you know, Hollywood extras who come in here so you can sit, then that's not going to go too far, because then you go to the Midwest. And is that like mediation? First of all, there are plenty of meditation in the Midwest. I don't know where you're going, but let's say, even if you can't, but right now you're here. Break_line: Let's say you get up in the morning, wash up, and you've set aside a time for you to sit. And you're at your kitchen table, and it's almost few seconds away from time to sit, and suddenly you feel this strong resistance. Something in you doesn't want to sit, because right now, it's not a fun activity. It's not pleasurable. And the mind very much functions on the pain pleasure/ principle. Pavlov was right. Skinner if you grow… we like it (panting) Fido runs after the bone. Punish fido. He doesn't want to go there anymore. So, we're not in some ways not so different. Instead of marching yourself at gunpoint, to your place of sitting, pause, and just be aware of the resistance. Maybe you don't even get to your…you are sitting on a cushion. Don't even sit on your cushion. Just you're at the breakfast table, and you feel this tightening up. Start there. Because that's true. If the breath can help you, great, but even without it, so instead of forcing yourself to get to somewhat, you think you should do, at least sometimes, start with just exactly what you describe. Because right now, the way you presented it, that's an obstacle to your meditation. But in the deepest sense, the whole principle behind this form of meditation is, it isn't an obstacle to your meditation, it is your meditation. Break_line: There was a great Indian yogi named Shantideva, and he said that the most difficult obstruction to getting enlightened, is to have no obstructions. In other words, but many people get discouraged at this. But there's something in you that you see…you don't have confidence in it yet, because the real confidence, maybe you've read some books, and maybe there's a longing to improve the quality of your life. And at some sense, do you think there is a real chance that this could be helpful? Okay, so you have some you could call it faith, saddha, or confidence, or conviction. And you need that just to get going. But finally, that won't be enough to take you until you start personally experiencing the fruit of practice. When you start to see, not because I said so, or the Buddha said so, or Shantideva said so, because you see, whoa. This is a useful skill I'm learning here. But until that comes, Break_line: Look, some of my most miserable, if this is any solace, miserable moments of my life. I remember one I'll never forget it. Sitting on the cushion. And it was an hour of sitting, and I was in so much physical pain, I was ready to jump out of the window. And when the bell rang, and I wasn't meditating, it was just survival, just sticking with it. When the bell rang, and the sitting was officially over, officially over, suddenly the meditative mind emerged, because I wasn't officially supposed to be meditating. It was no longer a degree granting program. And suddenly I found myself relaxed, and open, experiencing breathing, hearing sounds. It's not as complicated as we make it, but if you have some goal, like you have a worthy goal. Look, typically suffering is what brings us to this. It's the best motive, okay? But then we practice, in order to get rid of suffering. That just take care of each moment. A byproduct of that is that it takes care of the suffering. If you get obsessed with getting rid of suffering, you're compromising the quality of the here and now attention. And granted, it does take a certain amount of conviction, until this new skill... after all, what is wisdom? It's skill in living. Perhaps it's the hardest thing to learn, based on the record, of the human race. We're not that good at it. Does anyone want to disagree? Break_line: We're not the sharpest shed in the tool. We're not the sharpest tool in the shed. We don't seem to learn from history, even though historians are constantly, when I went through history classes, we study history, in order to learn, not to make the same mistakes. I think I study history to find out we keep making the same mistake. So that's valuable. But then the question is why? Okay, so there's something important we're not learning, and that is wisdom is the art of living. Okay, is that going to be easier, or harder than, the art of learning, how to bake a cake, or how to hula hoop, or how to do surfboarding, or other things that at first we're not doing well. So, keep at it. Now, when you're with a group, great. But let's say when you're not with a group, maybe the mind will throw up. Oh my God, I'm on my own. This is horrible. Become aware of all the psychological climate. The psychological climate, that in a way, is making it harder for you. Here's what my Korean teacher would say, don't make difficult and don't make easy. Don't make anything. It's just what it is. Don't name it, because once you name it, in a way, you poison it, because words are very powerful conditioners. Am I making a little bit of sense? End_time: 01:14:50
